


limpet

by spqr



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Beach, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes, Summer, The Whole Gang's Here - Freeform, They go to the beach, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, they're all young and dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 10:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13785534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spqr/pseuds/spqr
Summary: Last summer, Tony stole one of Bucky’s sweaters.It’s green, dark green, with thin navy stripes. It was too big on Bucky, so on Tony it’s almost comical. Except it’s not funny at all, the way Bucky’s stomach swoops when he sees him in it.





	limpet

**Author's Note:**

> warning: tony's 16, bucky's 20

Last summer, Tony stole one of Bucky’s sweaters.

 

It’s green, dark green, with thin navy stripes. It was too big on Bucky, so on Tony it’s almost comical. Except it’s not funny at all, the way Bucky’s stomach swoops when he sees him in it, fingers just peeking out the cuffs and the collar almost big enough that it falls off one of his shoulders. _God_ , he looks like...like he belongs to Bucky. Like he wants to.

 

There’s a whole kitchen and a lot of people between them. Warm ocean breeze wafts in through the open patio doors, sunshine pours from high windows, the last car, the old VW beetle with the Maximoffs in it, just pulled into the driveway, and they’re all officially here, convened for the mellow night of drinking and skinny dipping that always kicks off their summers.

 

Tony’s beachfront mansion is big enough that Bucky could carry him upstairs and find an empty bedroom and make Tony _scream_ , and no one would even hear.

 

He’s thinking about it, guiltily and in depth, when Steve claps him on the shoulder. “You’ve got your murder face on,” he informs Bucky. “Who’s the victim?”

 

 _Me,_ Bucky wants to say. _My sanity, because I want to ravage a fucking sixteen year old, and I’m almost twenty-one._ Instead he says, “The keg.”

 

“Jeez, Barnes,” Sam quips, coming up behind them with a six pack. “We don’t even have it set up yet. Here, have one of these.” He sticks a Natty in Bucky’s hands and disappears.

 

Bucky cracks it and starts to take a sip, but before he can, someone takes it from him and replaces it with a Dos Equis. “Not in my house, Buck, no sir. We don’t drink swill.”

 

“I didn’t know they let you buy Natty without a certified tramp stamp, Wilson,” Tony calls over his shoulder, pouring the Natty out in a plant that will be dead by morning. Sam flips him off from over in the kitchen, where Nat’s mixing a big bowl of jungle juice.

 

“Cheers,” Bucky raises the bottle to him and takes a long, long drink. There’s music coming from somewhere--oh, there it is: Clint’s at the top of the staircase, holding a boombox. Bucky chokes a little. “Is that the _Spice Girls?_ Jesus, take it away from him.”

 

Wanda flings open the front door, and from the driveway, Pietro’s blasting Sokovian rap. Clint lets out a battle cry and charges, boombox forgotten on the stairs. Tony watches them, smiling a little, and Bucky watches him, smiling a little, and Steve looks at both of them and says lowly, “Oh, no. Bucky. I thought we were done with this.”

 

Bucky gives him a look that he hopes says _the fucking sweater, Steve._

 

∞

 

The little beach town of Shield, Maryland has been good to them.

 

Bucky and Steve started coming down here for the summers after their freshman year of college. They rented a dinky shack on the bayside, so Steve could paint and Bucky could make a few bucks bartending at night, spend his days matriculating on the dock out back with a stack of Russian literature. After only a week or so, Steve added Sharon to the house roster.

 

Then it was Natasha, Bucky’s classmate, and then Sam, who as Bucky understands it met Steve by trying to race him on the beach, or something.

 

They met Clint and the Maximoffs, who live a block down and two over, via their asshole ex-room mate who was some sort of street magician and insisted everyone call him _Vision_. Together they found Scott and Hope, the lifeguards who work on the beach by Clint’s house.

 

Bucky acquired Thor in a bar fight, and through Thor they got this mousy grad student named Bruce, and through Bruce they got _kid genius_ Tony.

 

Through Tony, they occasionally get T’Challa, but Tony always introduces him as _one of my business partners, he’s a cat person_ , so that’s a mystery. Every once and a while the boat cops from Steve and Bucky’s area of the bay will come drink with them; their names are Quill and Gamora. Tony sometimes hangs around a rich guy up the beach called Strange.

 

They’re not the most normal family ever. They only spend 3 months out of the year together, except for Steve and Bucky and Natasha and Sharon, who all go back to the same dorm.

 

Bucky only spends 3 months with Tony, using his bare feet to bury Tony’s in the sand, walking down the street to the general store at 2 a.m, climbing on the roof because Tony wants to put in a new satellite, rubbing aloe on sunburn because he couldn’t get up to reapply, not when Tony was asleep on his lap and he was smiling a little in his sleep-- _hell_.

 

He spends the other 9 thinking about him.

 

∞

 

When he says Tony _stole_ the sweater, he doesn’t really mean _stole_.

 

It was--there was a kiss. _Jesus_ , there shouldn’t have been. Tony was fifteen last summer, Bucky shouldn’t have had his hands anywhere _near_ him, but Tony was at one of Strange’s ragers, and Strange had at least a decade on all of them, and Tony called Bucky and said _I think someone put something in my drink_ , and even if it wasn’t Strange, Bucky still blames him.

 

Bucky’s proud of himself for remembering to put on clothes over his boxers. He was seeing red, slamming doors, he probably woke the whole damn house up. But he didn’t care--he tore out in his pajama pants and his green-and-navy sweater and took Steve’s truck and parked it on the damn sidewalk outside Strange’s house.

 

He vaguely remembers punching a guy to get inside. Whatever. The lights were flashing and the music was pounding and the cops should’ve been called _hours ago_.

 

But Quill and Gamora were at the bar inside, telling war stories. Bucky would’ve stopped to punch them, too, if he didn’t have to be upstairs _yesterday_.

 

His knock on the locked bathroom door was too brusque. He didn’t--Jesus, he didn’t want to _scare_ Tony, not when he’d sounded small and slurred on the phone. But the door opened.

 

Tony said, “Hey,” and he sounded like he was about to say _sorry_ , so Bucky hugged him instead. Tony just slumped all his weight onto him, and Bucky ended up carrying him, but he didn’t care. Actually, he preferred it, Tony clinging to his front like a limpet.

 

He carried him down the back staircase and out into the driveway, past the outdoor shower. But Tony wouldn’t go into the car, dragged himself away from Bucky and swayed away towards the beach, and Bucky trailed after him.

 

Tony emptied his guts into the reeds in the dunes, hands braced on the low fence. It took him a few painful heaves to get everything up, and then he tugged off his button-down and used it to wipe his mouth, then stuffed it in the trash can.

 

He sat down on the sand. His shoulders were thin and slumped, his eyes were red-ringed and sort of ashamed, he wouldn’t look at Bucky at all. Standing on the dark shore, in socks and sandals, Bucky had never felt anything so acutely as he felt the need to bundle Tony back in his bed and his sheets and watch him sleep through the night.

 

Bucky swallowed, and sat down next to Tony.

 

“Sorry I woke you,” Tony said. It sounded automatic, like he was programmed to say it but didn’t actually mean any of it. “I probably could’ve just puked it all up alone.”

 

“I’m glad you called me,” Bucky said, a little harder than he meant to.

 

Tony squinted out at the ocean. A cool breeze breathed off the water, and a fine shiver ran down Tony’s spine. Bucky was out of his sweater before he could think about it, stripped down to a white undershirt. He jammed it on over Tony’s head, and let him do the arms.

 

“Thanks,” Tony said. He looked over, finally, and frowned. “You okay, Buck? You look like you’re ready to murder someone--“

 

Bucky seized him by the head, ducked in, and caught himself at the last moment. Their foreheads knocked gently. Their noses brushed. Tony sucked in a shallow breath, and Bucky _wanted to_ , but he just stuck there, in limbo.

 

Then Tony pressed in, pressed their lips together, pressed himself into Bucky’s lap, and he was so _soft_ , his waist was so thin when Bucky’s arms went around it, his hair felt so _gorgeous_ under Bucky’s fingers, his mouth stayed closed but it was the greatest thing Bucky’d ever felt.

 

He felt...he felt...he was _hard_ , and he jerked away.

 

Up and onto his feet, and he heard Tony say, “Yeah. Yeah, that. I get it. Sorry.” And he drove Tony home and left him in an empty house and never bothered to get back the sweater.

 

∞

 

The mellow first-party-of-the-year is in full swing. They’ve moved out onto the beach, sat on towels and pillows in a comfortable circle around the fire.

 

Clint’s leading the skinny-dipping charge, followed by Pietro and Thor, Wanda’s broken out the weed, Bruce is out cold with his head in Nat’s lap, snoring while she pets his hair, and Bucky’s trying to ignore Steve and Sharon going at it next to him.

 

Across the fire, he hears Scott ask Tony, “Hey, where’d you get the sweater?”

 

Tony holds his arm up to look at it, like he’s forgotten what he’s wearing. Bucky watches him, gut slowly sinking. “Huh,” Tony says. “You know, I actually have no idea.”

 

Bucky has to get up and walk away. No one comes after him, but the idea chases him: Tony doesn’t remember. He was drunk and fucked up and Bucky _put his hands on him_ and Tony doesn’t remember. Bucky’s never felt so sick in his life.

 

∞

 

Information about Tony comes to light in roundabout ways. He doesn’t really talk about his life outside Shield, Maryland, at least not on purpose.

 

One thing he _does_ like to talk about is science. Usually, Bruce is the one to be on the receiving end of those particular rants, but something about the ketchup bottle gets him going one time when he and Bucky are grabbing breakfast at the diner. Tony goes for what seems like 5 minutes without taking a breath, and Bucky just drinks his coffee and watches, smiling.

 

Tony catches him looking, and trails off. “Shit,” he says. “You gotta stop me when I get going like that, Buck, I don’t know the power of my own excitement.”

 

“No,” Bucky says, maybe a little too quickly. “I like listening to you talk. I don’t understand a word of it, don’t get me wrong, but...it saves me having to come up with something interesting to say.”

 

For a lont moment Tony just stares at him like he’s grown a second head. Then he apparently decides to let himself smile, takes a slurp of his coffee, a bite of his bagel, and launches back in with his mouth full. That’s how Bucky discovers he’s a physics PhD candidate at MIT.

 

One of the first few days after they meet, they’re all at a day party at Tony’s house, and Bucky sticks his foot in his mouth. “Big house,” he says. “Your parents let you stay here alone?”

 

Tony snorts derisively and says, “ _Let me_? They probably haven’t even noticed I’m gone.” And that’s how Bucky learns Tony’s home life is complete and utter crap.

 

The _affection-starved_ thing he figures out by touch. Every time he touches Tony, accidental or otherwise--every time _anyone_ touches Tony--he seizes up a little bit. He doesn’t lean out of it, but he also really doesn’t lean _into_ it. Bucky gets the sense he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it breaks his fucking heart.

 

He tries to remember to be gentle, to start with soft fingertips and ease into it, whether he’s rubbing sunscreen on Tony’s back or throwing him off the dock to the tune of uproarious laughter or tucking his drunk ass into bed after a few too many drinks.

 

He doesn’t know if Tony has friends at home who look out for him. He doesn’t know if Tony went to highschool, or boarding school, or if he just read a lot of books. He doesn’t know if Tony’s a virgin, and damn, it shouldn’t matter, but it _does_. Because Tony lets people treat him like shit, and the thought of one of those people’s hands on him, it just--it matters.

 

∞

 

Steve and Tony got in a fight last year at the beginning of July.

 

It left Bucky confused and angry and helpless, because he couldn’t pick sides between his best friend and the boy he was in love with. He didn’t talk to either of them for 3 days, until they worked it out for themselves, and at the end of it Nat came to him with wine and told him about it.

 

Bucky popped the cork out of bottle, out on the dock while the sun rose, and Nat said, “We’re calling it _civil war_. Steve got Clint and the twins, but pretty much everyone else went Tony’s way.”

 

Bucky took a swig. “How’d the whole shitstorm start?”

 

“No idea,” Nat said. “No one knows, except them. But it ended when Steve punched him in the face and Tony threw a bottle at his head.”

 

Bucky sat up and looked at her sharply. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

 

“Don’t worry, Tony missed,” Nat said, even though it was _clear_ from the way she was looking at him out of the corner of her eye that she knew it wasn’t Steve he was worried about. Steve was a big guy--he could take a bottle to the head. He’d been in fights before.

 

Tony, though. God, Bucky was going to have to chuck Steve off the side of a boat before he could start to feel better about this. “Does he have a black eye?”

 

“Yeah,” Nat said, “but he doesn’t care.” Bucky huffed a painful laugh and stared out at the water, but he could feel Nat’s eyes on him, calculating something. Sometimes she was so good at reading him, he wondered if he wore his emotions on his face. “What Tony cares about,” she continued, choosing her words deliberately, “is that you ghosted on him.”

 

Bucky’s fist tightened on the neck of the wine bottle, but Nat kept going. “I don’t know the details, but if Tony’s had the kind of life I think he has, he’s used to people disappearing on him. He probably thinks you took Steve’s side, and he’s got a routine--it involves the pool and a bottle of jack and more money than we’ve got in all our bank accounts put together.”

 

She took the wine from him. “If you hurry, you can get to him before he’s incoherent.”

 

∞

 

They don’t talk during the school year.

 

Well, most of them do. But none of them ever hear from Tony (except Bruce, who gets summoned every once and a while for the purpose of peer review, but won’t spill any deets, except to Nat, who won’t spill to anyone else, even Bucky). Tony’s in their group chat, but he never sends anything, and Bucky can never work up the nerve to call him.

 

So Tony just shows up out of the blue at the beginning of every summer and ghosts on an unspecified day sometime before September. Usually he’ll breeze through Bucky and Steve’s house for one last goodbye day drinking session with the boys, but last year he didn’t, he just piled into his Testarossa and left.

 

That was at the end of two weeks of halfhearted involvement in their raves, weak excuses every time Bucky tried to talk to him, and weird forced smiles.

 

Bucky still doesn’t know what happened, what set him off, but Tony seems to have gotten over it. His smile looks real all the time: when Sam takes Steve down _hard_ in a game of beach volleyball, when he squirts whipped cream at Bucky across the kitchen while he’s hungover and trying to make coffee, when Bruce comes barrelling down the street from his house because he just figured out an equation.

 

Bucky forgets about the quiet week, the disappearance. He’s glad to see Tony smiling again. He wants to see him smile every day--every _second_ of every day--but he’s not sure how to ask _where do you go_ , and _will you go there with me._

 

∞

 

T’Challa finds Bucky on the upstairs balcony at Tony’s beach house, one night.

 

There’s a rave winding down downstairs, one of the real head-banging ones that makes Bucky feel like a very old man. T’Challa has a tumbler of something that looks very smooth in his hand, and Bucky has a red solo cup full of jungle juice. It’s fitting.

 

They just stare out at the dark ocean for a while, listening to the surf. Below them on the beach, Sharon and Steve and Wanda run towards the ocean, shedding clothes as they do, laughing. Bucky’s going to have to mop up _that_ mess in the morning.

 

The silence drags on. Bucky’s about to open with _so, cats?_ when T’Challa talks. “Being a Stark,” he begins, “is a bit like being a prince, I believe.”

 

Bucky squints at him. “How d’you know? You a prince?”

 

“Yes,” T’Challa answers. Bucky boggles a little, but he thinks that can be blamed on the alcohol. Usually, he’s very unflappable. T’Challa grins. It might be the first time Bucky’s ever seen his face change. “What I mean is that, when you are a prince, you are taught to look for ulterior motives. And you are not taught by your father. You are taught by the world.”

 

Bucky’s brain tries to put it together, but it can’t. “What does that have to do with Tony?”

 

“Tony is heir to an empire,” T’Challa explains. “The more you have to protect, the more difficult it is to trust. Every time someone does something for you, you wonder what they expect in return. It is just how your mind operates--even if you _know_ that person, you second-guess. You do not let yourself ask for things, because then you owe favors, and you cannot afford them.”

 

It turns over and over in Bucky’s head, but it doesn’t sink in. “Why are you telling me this?”

 

T’Challa smiles knowingly and turns back to look out at the sea, or maybe at Sharon’s ass, which is currently on display in said sea. “You seemed like the person to tell.”

 

∞

 

Bucky’s just about to go on-shift at the bar when he gets the call.

 

“Hey,” Tony says, voice flat over the speakers. “Look, this is dumb, but I broke my arm and the hospital won’t let me leave alone, because they’re _assholes.”_ The last word is yelled away from the phone, probably at some poor nurse. “So, can you come get me?”

 

Bucky leans against the inside of the back door, while the bus boy clinks glasses together noisily in the sink behind him. “Hold on, Tony,” he says. “What do you mean, you broke your arm? How did you break your arm?”

 

“Fell off the roof,” Tony says offhandedly. “Not important. If I don’t get someone to come pick me up soon, they’re going to call the proprietor on my insurance, and that’s my dad, and he’ll just have them cut the cast off so he can break my arm all over again. So. Can you get me?”

 

“Yeah,” says Bucky, while his brain sticks on _break my arm all over again_. “I’m on my way.”

 

“Great,” Tony says. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

 

Before Bucky can say _no you don’t_ , he hangs up. Bucky listens to the dial tone for a few long moments, swears, and stuffs his phone back in the pocket of his shorts. Then he swears again, digs the phone back out, and calls Clint to come cover his shift. He gets Pietro instead, but Pietro says he’ll do the shift if he can keep the cash, which is fine.

 

The hospital in Shield, Maryland isn’t actually in Shield, Maryland. It’s a half-hour drive up the cost, nearly in the next state. Bucky practices his breathing exercises on his way up, hands clenching and unclenching on the steering wheel of Steve’s truck, surfboards rattling around in back. He does _not_ feel calm, but he tells himself it’s just a broken arm.

 

It doesn’t strike him until he’s pulling into the parking lot of the ER: how did Tony get up here in the first place? Bucky can hardly imagine him calling an ambulance.

 

No time to think about it. He jogs inside, prepared to run dramatically up to the counter and demand to know where Tony is, only Tony’s already in the waiting room, arm in a blue cast, flipping through an issue of a home and garden magazine. He looks a little tired, like maybe he didn’t sleep last night, but--whole. Bucky deflates, all the stress bled out of him.

 

“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

 

Tony puts down the magazine. “Yeah,” he says drily. “Fantastic. I just have to wear a plastic bag over this damn thing for the rest of the summer, so that should be super sexy.”

 

“Mmm, gorgeous,” Bucky says, and tries not to sound like he means it so much. He wants to put a hand in Tony’s hair, rub that tired headache away, but he remembers acutely the disastrous drop after the last time he let himself do what he wanted to Tony. So instead he says, “You look like you could use a burger.”

 

“Abso _lutely_ ,” Tony declares. He pops up, and they leave.

 

In the car, Bucky digs up a Sharpie signs his name on the cast. He doesn’t do anything frilly, just big block letters, BUCKY. A lump rises in his throat. “Nice,” Tony says. “Very realist, very you. Is Wanda still going through that calligraphy phase? If so, do not let her near me.”

 

“How’d you get here?” Bucky asks, instead of laughing and putting the car in drive. “You call an ambulance or something?”

 

Already, before Tony answers, he spots the Testarossa a few spots over. “I drove,” Tony says. “I still have one good arm, you know. And not one but _two_ good feet.”

 

It’s a good thing they stop for burgers. Bucky needs something to sink his teeth into.

 

∞

 

Tony’s back in his sweater a few nights later.

 

His cast has all of their names on it now, even Wanda’s (she had to sneak in at night to manage that), and something possessive and roiling in Bucky’s gut settles down and glows warm.

 

It’s a good night. Bucky and Tony are the last two awake, everyone else konked out on the beds and the sofas inside. They sit out on the patio in beach chairs with their feet on the railing, warm half-empty beers in their hands, and just talk. Tony talks about his research, and Bucky talks about the first time he and Steve went to Coney Island, how it felt like the first time he’d ever _really_ seen the sky.

 

Tony’s hair is getting a little too long, so the wind has just enough to play with. He’s looking at his toes and smiling, wiggling them like they’re fascinating. The ocean is a steady, comforting in-and-out noise at the edge of Bucky’s awareness, dragging him under.

 

But the real undertow is this: Bucky wants to drag Tony into his lap. He wants to feel all of Tony pressed up against all of _him_. He wants to skim his teeth over Tony’s neck and undo the ties on those board shorts and sink his fingers into him, stretch him open and sink into him for _real_.

 

“I remember, you know,” Tony says, into the lull.

 

Bucky’s eyes snap back into focus. He almost says _remember what_? but then he knows. Tony continues, “I was--I puked up most of whatever was in my system, so I was really, really sober. I, uh. I didn’t know if you knew that.”

 

There’s no roadmap for this. Bucky needs a cue. He needs to know if Tony’s mad at him, if this is checkmate, or if he’s just run out of things to say. So Bucky watches him.

 

Tony takes a deep breath. “It was--it was a pretty shitty night, but I think it was one of the best of my life.” Bucky’s heart gives a painful thump, and he doesn’t know why. Tony speeds up, “I think I’ll look back on it. I--when all this, all you guys are just a nice string of memories, I think that’s one that will mean a lot to me. Just so you know.”

 

Bucky’s a fucking idiot, and he’s got a lot of beers in him, so he doesn’t realize Tony Stark’s just confessed his love to him. He doesn’t realize this is as close to a declaration as he’s ever going to get. He doesn’t realize Tony’s saying _I know I can’t keep this, but I’d like to_.

 

No, he’s a fucking idiot, soinstead he gets mad and stands up clumsily from the chair. He says, “Fuck you, Tony. We’re not just some...some _movie_ you can watch when you’re sad.”

 

And he turns around before he can see the way Tony’s face shatters before it shuts down. And he stumbles inside. And Tony stays on the porch for a long, long time.

 

∞

 

Come morning--or, come afternoon--it’s very sunny, and there’s a “for sale” sign outside.

 

They stand clustered around it, all of them but Tony. They’re all so hungover they feel like they got hit by a truck, or a fleet of trucks, and they’ve all got hats and sunglasses on. Pietro has _two_ pairs of sunglasses on. Bruce says, “What the fuck.”

 

Bucky, who has the vague taste in his mouth of having said something unforgivable last night, stays mum. Thor’s phone rings. Everyone groans while he digs it out of his sweatshirt pocket and answers: “Dr. Strange. Please do speak softly.” A pause. “Thank you. We will send someone.”

 

He hangs up. “Tony is in the good doctor’s spare bed. We must retrieve him.”

 

Bruce says, once more with feeling, “What the fuck.” Everyone turns to look at Bucky, but Bucky turns to look at Nat. She reads the look on his face with startling immediacy, claps Sam on the shoulder, and volunteers them to go get him, despite Sam’s moaning and groaning.

 

As Steve’s truck speeds away and the group disperses, Steve drifts over to Bucky’s side. For a long minute they just stand there on the sun-bathed sidewalk. Finally, Steve says, “Whatever’s going on with you and Tony, this seems like a now-or-never scenario.”

 

Bucky squints at him. “That’s not a thing, Stevie.”

 

“Sure is, Buck,” Steve returns matter-of-factly. “You just invented it. Whatever window you’ve got before Tony flees the country, you’d better make the most of it.”

 

“Hell, since when do _you_ give _me_ advice about love?” Bucky asks, just to coax one of those all-American smiles out of his best friend. “Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

 

“Yeah, well,” Steve says. “That was before you mucked everything up.”

 

Steve stays pretty quiet on the walk back to their house. He pokes fun at Bucky a few times for tripping over the edges of the sidewalk, but Bucky gives as good as he gets in that department. It’s just automatic. But Bucky’s brain is elsewhere, figuring out that the only things he really wants in life are his friends and Tony. That it’s all really, really simple, and he just needs to figure out how to turn this simple vision around on the world. That’s all.

 

 _That’s all_ , he laughs at himself as they jog up the front steps. _Simple_.

 

As soon as they walk in the door, Nat throws a tennis ball at his head. He catches it, barely, and lobs it back at her. “What the fuck, Natasha?”

 

She doesn’t answer, she just drags him down onto the dock. Her grip is like iron--she’s terrifying when she needs to be, and now is apparently one of those times. She shoves him at the edge of the dock, so he has to dance quickly to keep from falling in, and rounds on him. “What did you say to him?” she demands.

 

“I don’t know,” Bucky says. “I--he was talking about how we were just gonna be memories, or something, like none of us matter to him, and I just--I snapped.”

 

Nat swears in Russian and drags a hand over her eyes. After a moment, she drops her hand to resume glaring at him. “I’m only going to explain this to you once, Barnes, so you better listen.” Her voice is low and dangerous, like she’s willing to gut him like a fish if he doesn’t pay attention. So he pays attention.

 

Nat’s expression softens a little. “He’s not going to come to you. He’s not going to fight for you, or try to hold onto you, or chase you back to New York. Because he doesn’t think he’d be welcome. He doesn’t think he’s _allowed_.”

 

∞

 

The bay moves the dock gently under his feet. His headache pounds against the inside of a swollen skull, but it’s not enough to stop the revelation, this time, not with Nat forcing it out of him.

 

Everything clicks into place at once: Tony, who doesn’t let himself ask for things because he knows he’ll have to give something back. Tony, whose parents don’t even notice he’s gone, who probably spent his whole childhood looking for love and being ignored. Tony, who seizes up when you touch him but never moves away.

 

Tony who drove himself to the hospital. Tony who never asks for more than the summer. Tony who has a routine for dealing with abandonment.

 

Tony, who said _yeah. yeah, that. I get it. sorry._ and went into a big empty house with his shoulders hunched in Bucky’s sweater and let him drive away, content to get on with just the memories because he never thought he was allowed to turn around and push back, push for more.

 

Bucky looks at Nat, his mouth hanging open. “Shit,” he says. _“Tony_.”

 

∞

 

Knocking doesn’t work, so Bucky goes around to the beach side.

 

There’s a pile of flip flops near the outdoor shower, that people just leave so they can use them when they’re headed out. Bucky grabs an armful of them and starts chucking them at the upstairs window he knows is Tony’s bedroom. Rocks would be more romantic, but he’s not an _animal_.

 

He’s almost through the armful when Tony says, “You’re probably scaring the realtor.”

 

Bucky whips around. The sandals fall from his arms one by one, plunking in the sand. “Hey,” he says, more breathless than he should be considering he’s just standing. “Tony.”

 

Tony holds his arms out in a _here I am_ gesture, smile tight and fake. He’s not wearing Bucky’s sweater anymore--he’s wearing a crisp pastel-yellow polo and navy shorts, like he’s already halfway back in the boardroom, in front of the press. Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever _ached_ for someone’s skin--just skin--but that’s the only way to describe this feeling.

 

What comes out of his mouth is, “You’re selling the house?”

 

Tony’s fake smile turns twisted and painful. “Yeah,” he says. “Dear old dad says it’s _distracting_ me. He wants me to spend summers at corporate from now on.” He gestures up to the house, absently, like he doesn’t give a shit. It’s a lie. “The realtor had to bring in an industrial cleaning team, after the number we did on the place last night.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“I’m as much to blame as any of you asshats,” Tony says. Despite what are probably his best efforts, _asshats_ still sounds fond. “I guess that was the big goodbye party.”

 

Bucky’s whole body goes _no._ “No,” he says.

 

Tony’s eyes snap to him, red-ringed and wide, so wide. He’s-- _god,_ there’s a storm rolling in over the ocean and the air is cool and moist and he clearly hasn’t brushed his hair in days and there’s sand halfway up his calves and he’s _gorgeous,_ he’s the most beautiful thing Bucky’s ever seen.

 

“This isn’t goodbye,” Bucky says. There’s no plan, here, but he has to say _something_. “I’m not gonna let you just disappear, Tony. I don’t wanna be just some memory that makes you smile.”

 

His hand is on Tony’s face before he can stop it, but his fingers are gentle, like they know what to do even without his brain. Tony stiffens a little, but Bucky’s hand slides around to cup his jaw, his thumb presses into Tony’s cheek, and he relaxes. They relax.

 

“What are you saying, Buck?” Tony asks, voice soft. “You really--you have to spell it out, because I’ve been told I’m an idiot about this sort of stuff.”

 

Everything feels very fragile and Bucky never learned how _not_ to grab things tight with two hands, and he doesn’t want to break it. But fuck, maybe you have to break some things to use the pieces and build better ones.

 

“I love you,” Bucky says, very clearly.

 

It goes through Tony’s body like a shock--he goes tense under Bucky’s hands, but Bucky knows what to do. He draws him in, wraps his arms around his skinny body so Tony can hide his face in Bucky’s neck, if he needs to. He does. “Stay with me,” Bucky murmurs. He presses a kiss into Tony’s hair. “Let me stay with you. Whatever happens, just--it’s gotta be us.”

 

Tony laughs, more a relieved exhalation of air than anything. He drops all his weight on Bucky, the way he did that night at Strange’s, and Bucky holds him, hefts his feet up off the ground so Tony can hook his legs around Bucky’s waist. He mutters something into Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky says, “What?”

 

Tony pulls away to look him in the face. His eyes are shining, but he’s got that mischeivous look on that means he’s about to tease someone. “Did you plan that? It was beautiful.”

 

“Shut up,” Bucky says, but he’s smiling. “Is that a yes?”

 

Tony kisses him. Bucky can’t focus enough to stay standing anymore, so he staggers back and sits down on the sand, Tony in his lap. The kid’s a bundle of energy, and it’s all coming out all over Bucky, short intense kisses and hands clenching and unclenching in the back of his shirt and a flutter in Tony’s chest he can _feel_ , they’re so close.

 

He slides a hand around the back of Tony’s head and opens up his mouth, sets a slow, steady rhythm to coax Tony back down to earth, back _here_ with him. It works--Tony melts against him, their bodies even closer than before. One of Bucky’s hands finds skin, warm and soft.

 

Cool air hits his lips. His eyes drag open, and Tony’s smiling down at him like he knows a secret. As it turns out, he does. “I’m a virgin,” he says.

 

It’s not ashamed. It’s like he won something. Like he _knows_ exactly what he’s doing, and he’s a fucking PhD candidate, of _course_ he knows what he’s doing. Bucky’s mind goes heavy and dark, and he wonders if he can find a room inside where the realtor and her industrial cleaning team won’t hear them. Probably. Worth the risk.

 

Tony grins devilishly. “You okay there, Buck?” he asks, faux-innocent. “You look like you’re gonna murder someone.”

 

Bucky rumbles _you_ and pulls him back in. And he'll always pull him back in, because if Tony's not going to do the clinging--well, then Bucky will hold on for both of them.


End file.
